Tag: Red Lorry Yellow Lorry

Rough Dimension by VR SEX

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(NOTE: This is a follow-up to the VR SEX live review that is already posted and available here: https://soundsandshadows.com/2022/04/01/vr-sex-live-at-the-casbah-san-diego-ca-3-24-22/?fbclid=IwAR3hsseQi621MviCpFXdpH0P6IJS4Ard3cP-M3hHH6Vuo71aMCT1FwVzkic)

Imagine a band that encapsulates everything you love about music; a band that seems like an amalgam of almost every style that caught your ear as a kid when you heard it on the radio for the first time. After a VERY LONG spell of cynical indifference, my faith has been restored courtesy of VR SEX.

Rough Dimension is the band’s second full-length and fourth release overall and it shows no sign of the band slowing down from it’s barrage of cerebral ear-candy. These nine songs will take you down the dark seedy side streets of LA at night, but you may not be sure if you’re the prey or predator.

First of all, Rough Dimension is a rocker. Track one, Victim or Vixen, is evidence of that, followed by Glutton For Love, which really drives the point home. Rocking or not, the synths make strong showing on Glutton For Love and Snake Water. And some experimental noise cleverly sneaks its way in with Cyber Crimes.

Is it wrong that a punk song made a middle-aged cynic like me want to cry? Walk Of Fame, both in its lyrics and overall tone, just really grabbed me in a way that so few songs do. Not since Chris Reed of
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry have I heard a droning baritone voice convey such emotion.

The guitar progressions throughout Rough Dimension have to be some of the most fresh and original I’ve heard in long time – especially in a genre that I was convinced was past its last gasp. Even the simpler ideas are well-conveyed due to good ol’ fashioned musicianship.

Even if I wasn’t already a fan of VR SEX and biased as Hell, I’d still put Rough Dimension among my top picks of 2022 so far. This would have been a fantastic full-length debut album; the fact that it’s their sophomore effort makes it even more impressive.

https://vrsex.bandcamp.com/album/rough-dimension

Redwing Blackbird: Fire Cleans Everything EP 

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 Fire Cleans Everything EP originally released on Election Day (11/04/2020) immediately grabs you with a sense of the tension across the U.S. in 2020. 

The opener and title track Fire Cleans Everything the sophomore release from Redwing Blackbird (Denver Based Band, by way of Phoenix, AZ) picks up almost as soon as the song starts with the steady rumble of the drums and driving bass line that, just as easily could have been released in 1984 as today to be answered in turn by the slow whining drone of the guitar.

Paul Bakers vocals on this release reminds me of the first time experienced Red Lorry Yellow Lorry’s Nothing Wrong. 

This screams post punk protest music with the restraint of a stalking jaguar as Paul Chants, “FIRE CLEANS EVERYTHING”

This momentum continues on in the liquidity psychedelia of Space Bridge. Something in this track pulls in thoughts of cult band Slint’s  Album Spiderland. 

Powerful yet just understated enough to become a cult classic.

RW/BB bring things down a notch with Rake, a down tempo neon ballad laced with the echo of western guitar. This track exposes so much aurally that the story becomes visual, as Paul crones Well I use to wake/ Run with the moon/Live like a Rake in such a way that could have just as easily come from the mouth of Nick Cave or Michael Gira, and take you on a journey down the highway heading away from the chaos of the city, even if it is just for a moment in a seedy hotel

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Closing this brilliantly composed EP is the chillingly upbeat yet apropos Guillotine, bring me right back to that Red Lorry Yellow Lorry experience. The smell of decaying card board of the Used Trax, and the head phone encapsulating me in some dark embrace that will last for years. 

This is a modern Post Punk Classic in Waiting.

Redwing Blackbird (bandcamp.com)

Images courtesy of Sarah Martinez